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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

new consumer group, Consumers Count, to fight for arbitration reform | Ed Mierzwinski

Today, consumerscount.org launched as a website using "crowdsourcing" to help consumers band together to fight back when they have same complaint against the same company, but are limited by forced arbitration clauses and restrictions on class action rights from obtaining redress. At least until the CFPB bans forced arbitration, we need innovative ideas like consumerscount.

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

It's the 30th anniversary of Connecticut's New Car Lemon Law | Ed Mierzwinski

Thirty years ago today, the nation's first new car lemon law took effect in Connecticut. I was ConnPIRG's director at the time, when we joined a freshman state legislator, John Woodcock, to take on both Detroit and the even-more-powerful (in Hartford, that is) Connecticut car dealers.

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Blog Post | Financial Reform

CFPB, FDIC, Fed and OCC slap AmEx Credit Card for numerous violations | Ed Mierzwinski

(UPDATED) Four federal financial regulators have announced an order for at least $85 million in restitution and $27.5 million in penalties alleging a variety of violations of equal credit opportunity, debt collection and credit reporting laws by the American Express credit card. From the CFPB: "at every stage of the consumer experience, from marketing to enrollment to payment to debt collection, American Express violated consumer protection laws."

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

Consumer Reports: Ticketmaster worst of 52 online shopping sites | Ed Mierzwinski

We are shocked, shocked to find in our latest Consumer Reports magazine that Ticketmaster came in last in a Consumer Reports member survey asking for online retailer ratings. Could it be the fees or maybe the "deceptive" sales tactics?

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Blog Post | Financial Reform

Latest financial follies: "Bizarre" FHFA raising mortgage costs; CNBC Closing Bell overdraft debate | Ed Mierzwinski

Latest follies: Professor Alan White explains the latest antics of the "bizarre" Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)--its effort to punish states with successful foreclosure mediation programs by raising their mortgage costs. Meanwhile, I join Maria Bartiromo on CNBC's Closing Bell where I blame irresponsible bankers for an increase in overdraft fees.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Tax

New in The Huffington Post: Will BP’s Misdeeds Be Further Subsidized by Taxpayers?

New In the Public Interest column today on The Huffington Post from Phineas Baxandall

U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) Senior Analyst on Tax and Budget Policy explains the hidden tax subsidy likely to be in a settlement unless it’s prohibited

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Budget

Facebook’s Tax Dodge Stands to Make Billions for Company and Zuckerberg

U.S. Senator Carl Levin isn’t necessarily the man you’d look to for the latest news about Facebook. The 77-year old was described by Time magazine as “pudgy, balding and occasionally rumpled, and he constantly wears his glasses at the very tip of his nose.” However, today he broke some shocking news on the Senate floor about special tax favors that Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, will enjoy at great cost to the U.S. Treasury.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Tax

White House Plan to Close Special Interest Tax Loopholes Is the Right Approach to Reform, But Details Matter

The President has put forward the beginnings of a tax reform plan that takes the right approach, but is still missing critical details. America needs a level playing field where businesses succeed by being more productive and innovative, not by hiding profits in the Cayman Islands or other tax havens. By ending special-interest tax preferences, the administration plan could help the economy and reduce debt, while addressing public outrage about large companies dodging their taxes.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Budget

White House Plan to Close Special Interest Tax Loopholes Is the Right Approach to Reform, But Details Matter

Statement by Phineas Baxandall, Senior Tax and Budget Analyst for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, in response to the White House announcement today proposing to eliminate tax loopholes and preferences.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Financial Reform

U.S. PIRG Applauds CFPB Proposal To Regulate Biggest Credit Bureaus

“Last summer over 10,000 PIRG members submitted comments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) urging strict regulation of credit bureaus and credit scoring firms. We applaud the CFPB for its proposal today to subject the nation’s largest credit bureaus and credit scoring firms to full scrutiny as “larger participants” (CFPB pdf) in the financial marketplace."

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Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Democracy

The Wealth Primary

Our analysis of Federal Election Commission (FEC) campaign finance data for the 2006 primary elections shows that money played a key role in determining election outcomes and that most campaign contributions came from a small number of large donors.

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Report | CALPIRG Education Fund | Tax

Sunshine for California

Corporate tax avoidance leaves taxpaying households to pick up the tab for funding highways, schools, and other public structures. Much of the indirect costs of aggressive tax avoidance are also borne by investors who are unaware of these risky schemes. And everybody suffers when corporate profitability is determined by opportunities for tax evasion rather than efficiency or innovation.

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Report | CALPIRG Education Fund | Budget

Sunshine for California

Corporate tax avoidance leaves taxpaying households to pick up the tab for funding highways, schools, and other public structures. Much of the indirect costs of aggressive tax avoidance are also borne by investors who are unaware of these risky schemes. And everybody suffers when corporate profitability is determined by opportunities for tax evasion rather than efficiency or innovation.

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Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Higher Ed

Student Debt and Consumer Costs in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Student loan debt is rising faster than the cost of living or health care costs. Between 1993 and 2004, the average debt for college graduates with loans increased by 107% to $19,200. At the same time, in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, the cost of living increased by 35%, and health care costs (including insurance, drugs and medical care) increased by 58%.

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Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Health Care

Paying the Price 2006

During the spring of 2006, researchers from the state Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) posed as uninsured customers and surveyed by phone hundreds of pharmacies in 35 cities across the country to determine how much uninsured consumers are paying for 10 prescription drugs commonly used by adults under age 65. We then compared these prices with the prices the pharmaceutical companies charge the federal government; with prices at a Canadian pharmacy; and with the results of a similar survey we completed in 2004.

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Blog Post | Financial Reform

CFPB's Cordray to Highlight Achievements/Goals Today In Senate | Ed Mierzwinski

The Senate Banking Committee will hold an oversight hearing today at 10 am (live video) on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's semi-annual report to Congress. The witness will be CFPB director Rich Cordray, who received a PIRG-backed recess appointment from the President on January 4th. Expect some CFPB opponents on the committee to boycott; others to show up.

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

Watch for fake 5.0 user ratings on merchant sites; and watch out for efforts by doctors, others to block real ratings, too | Ed Mierzwinski

Some user reviews on the Internet are written by sockpuppets paid by the website; in other cases, consumers are given inducements to write good reviews (New York Times). Meanwhile, doctors, especially, are trying to use copyright law to "squelch" valid reviews from patients (Washington Post). Either way, watch out.

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Blog Post | Tax

What Do Jon Stewart, Elizabeth Warren, and Barack Obama Have In Common? | Dan Smith

All three of them spoke out this week against corporate tax dodging.

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama called for an economy where “everyone plays by the same set of rules” and where companies can’t avoid taxes by shifting profits overseas. That same night, Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren went on the Daily Show and called out 30 corporations that a recent U.S. PIRG and Citizens for Tax Justice study found paid more to lobby Congress than they did in federal income taxes. When Warren told this to John Stewart on the Daily Show, it made the usually unflappable comedian’s jaw drop.

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Blog Post | Tax

The "Dirty Thirty" Corporations that Spend More on Lobbying than Taxes | Phineas Baxandall

Two years ago the Supreme Court's misguided Citizens United decision struck down long-standing Congressional limits on the political power of large corporations by vastly expanding the legal metaphor that "corporations are people." Now there is fresh evidence that corporate influence over Congress makes it easy for those same corporations to avoid their civic duty of paying taxes.

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Blog Post | Higher Ed

Obama's New Consumer Finance Chief Can Lower Student Debt | Rich Williams

President Obama took a bold and important step this week, standing up for student consumers by making a recess appointment of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The president's action means that the CFPB now has all its powers to protect students from unfair financial practices that pile on student debt, including lenders offering dangerously expensive private student loans and aggressive credit and debit card marketing.

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Tools & Resources

  • FIGHT HIGH Rx COSTS
    Prescription drugs cost too much. Brand-name drug companies have been paying off generic drug makers to delay competition and keep prices high, and it's costing us billions. Together, we can stop them.
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    TAKE ACTION
  • YOUR TAX DOLLARS BECOME CORN SYRUP
    At a time when one-in-three kids is overweight or obese, over a billion taxpayer dollars go to high-fructose corn syrup and junk food ingredients.
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    Take Action
  • STOP TAX DODGERS
    Corporate tax avoidance cost taxpayers $100 billion last year. We're working to close the loopholes that allow companies to avoid paying the taxes they owe.
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    Take Action
  • Reclaim Democracy
    The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision ushered in an era of unprecedented spending by big money in our elections, but we're working to return our democracy back to the principle of "one person, one vote."
    Learn more
    ADD YOUR VOICE

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When Big Pharma pays off their competition to keep them from selling lower priced generic drugs, we all pay. Each year this costs Americans an added $3.5 billion.

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